As follow up to my earlier story on the ‘definitive’ count of the TR7 Spider Special Edition, I have some extra data to add to the counts. This results from yet another visit to the Archive room at the British Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon where I poured though many more of the original Wedge build cards.
You may recall that I reported a total of 1,598 - 1,618 Spiders all built in 1980 at the Solihull factory for the
U.S. market. The uncertainty resulted from 20 missing build cards. Since then one of the missing cars has turned up (actually documented at the Vintage Triumph Register National Convention, 2012 Show, 1st Place - TR7 VIN 401294, recently sold on eBay), so I feel more confident in the maximum 1,618 number for US Spider Editions. Again, the final numbers are:
- 1,070 Carbureted Spiders (for the U.S. market, except California)
- 548 Fuel Injected Spiders (for California)
My latest visits to BHMC were to look through the 1981 build cards. Looking through these build cards we find that , for this last year of Wedge production, only the Solihull factory continued to deliver cars, to a total of 6,139.
The 300 TR7 Limited Edition cars
A key finding from these visits was that the first cars in 1981 were Limited Edition cars for Europe, with identical build card specifications to the earlier U.S. market carbureted Spiders!
- 300 LHD DHC cars with Maraschino (black) paint, Grey Stripe interiors & Velour seat trims, plus cast alloy wheels, carbureted engines, 5 speed manual with 3.45:1 differential gearing.
- VIN 402027 to 402328 (excepting VIN 402289 & 402290 which were Home market TR7 DHC’s in Pendelican White)
- 140 cars for France
- 95 cars for West Germany
- 39 cars for Italy
- 26 cars for Switzerland
Build cards were marked “L.EDITION”, as for the U.S. Spiders there was no specific call out of the trim customization or decal colour. So what were these cars? Communication between Jim TenCate and Andreas Dittiger[1] suggests that these were called ‘Final Edition” cars (Letzte Edition auf Deutsch) and that the decals were silver in colour rather than the red reflective ones used on U.S. Spiders.
So these were perhaps not ‘real’ Spiders, leaving the previous totals unchanged.
Yet to be determined: were there any Spiders from the Canley factory? Perhaps a few demo cars or even more? That has to wait for a future visit to the Archive Center…..
If you know more, or have a Spider and wish to find build date etc., do contact me.
Michael Hart - mjhart853@gmail.com
Copyright ©2014, Triumph Wedge Owners Association, all rights reserved
References
1. See also http://www.tr7ig.de/lastedit.htm
2. Originally published in the newsletter of the Triumph Wedge Owners Association, issue 25, January 14, 2014
Notes
[1]. Private communication between Jim TenCate & Andreas Dittiger, President of the German Wedge club.